Press Releases - News

Convergence of F5's BIG-IP and application firewall products on TMOS architecture delivers a new level of proactive application protection, while ensuring exceptional application performance and availability

October 11, 2005

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking, today announced the availability of the BIG-IP® Application Security Module (ASM), based on F5's TrafficShield™ application firewall technology. The module provides enterprise-class application layer security that is fully integrated with the BIG-IP product and built on F5's unique TMOS architecture, the foundation of Application Delivery Networking. By combining comprehensive application security, acceleration, and availability capabilities into a single policy-based framework, F5 is the first in the industry to offer customers a cost-effective, high-performance unified platform for successful application delivery.

"With this release of the Application Security Module on TMOS, F5 has done the integration work so customers no longer need to face the trade-off between operational efficiency, performance and holistic application security," said Erik Giesa, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at F5 Networks. "The ROI is easily quantifiable. By combining application security within BIG-IP's unique policy-based application delivery framework, IT staff now have the tools to shorten application deployment time, simplify infrastructure design, and reduce overall costs related to security enforcement, attack damage, and damage response."

According to a research note recently published by Gartner, Inc.1, integrating application delivery and Web application firewall functions into a common processing engine and single management interface will increase security and uptime of applications while reducing the complexity of protecting applications.

"Combining the application delivery controller and Web application firewall is key to optimizing the relationships between the application and network," said Mark Fabbi, VP and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner, Inc. "Because of the affinity of the underlying technologies and how these products are operationally deployed, consolidation of these two solutions is natural and logical. Integration will bring significant performance, operational and cost benefits."

Designed to provide more proactive protection for Web applications than traditional network level security solutions, the BIG-IP ASM leverages the application and network services that are part of its TMOS operating system, creating the most comprehensive application delivery networking solution on the market. This affords enterprises a better application networking alternative that reduces box clutter, lowers maintenance and management costs, and provides a new level of proactive application protection while ensuring exceptional application performance.

"With the introduction of the Application Security Module for its BIG-IP Traffic Management platform, F5 Networks is providing true application layer security without compromising application delivery or availability," said Eric Feagler, Group Product Manager for Web Platform and Tools, Microsoft. "F5's positive security model gives customers comprehensive protection for Web applications and adds defense in depth on top of Microsoft's existing security practices. This integrated solution delivers enhanced manageability and promises to reduce total cost of ownership for joint customers of Microsoft and F5."

Pricing and Availability

The BIG-IP Application Security Module, available today, is priced at USD$12,500 and runs on the BIG-IP 6400 and 6800.

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the global leader in Application Delivery Networking. F5 provides solutions that make applications secure, fast and available for everyone, helping organizations get the most out of their investment. By adding intelligence and manageability into the network to offload applications, F5 optimizes applications and allows them to work faster and consume fewer resources. F5's extensible architecture intelligently integrates application optimization, protection for the application and the network, and delivers application reliability - all on one universal platform. Over 9,000 organizations and service providers worldwide trust F5 to keep their applications running. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices worldwide. For more information go to www.f5.com

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